From The Moscow Times, an article on the paradox of an educated Russian. Why is Russia convinced that it is the victim of a campaign to make it look bad? While the West weighs how best to mobilise against climate change, Russia looks forward to an age of defrosted prosperity. Novaya Gazeta in the newspaper loved in the West, hated at home. The painful post-Soviet history of Russia's smallest republic: Can Ingushetia hold on to its independence now and what is the Kremlin's policy in the Caucasus going to be? Attempts to compensate for Belarusian lack of national pride by turning the country into a fortress and uniting nationality and religion are "insane". What went wrong with Latvia? From Eurozine, over the last thousand years, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have had multiple identities and been members of several empires; and while the Nordic countries cannot compare with France, the Netherlands, or Great Britain when it comes to classical colonialism, this is no reason not to discuss their colonial past. Can Iceland be saved? The plan to get an entire country out of debtors’ prison (and more and more and more). Olle Wastberg on the symbiosis of Sweden and IKEA: "Frankly, IKEA is doing more for the image of Sweden than all governmental efforts combined".
